Never Told
by Sapphire Dragons
Summary: Azra Granger attends her mother's funeral, and remembers... Character Death, Angst. [HrxD]


**A/N: Very repetitive, I know, but I wanted it to be like that, because it works. I wrote this after listening to 'Behind Blue Eyes' on a loop for about three hours. **

**Huge thanks to Kat, as always, for reading this over. Luff!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

**CDW: Character Death Warning**

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When I was small, Mum used to tell me stories, including stories of Father, and how everyone in the whole school knew who he was, and everyone in the Wizarding world knew his bloodline. Of course, she also said he was a right bastard that flaunted his bloodline everywhere, but I like to ignore that.

She said he changed during the war, during all the death and destruction and betrayals and alliances. She said she fell in love with him, because she had changed, too. She said they were some of the only ones alive, and that the way the war was going, they probably weren't going to reach their thirties.

Then she went on to say that, because of her friends, people began to expect things, and that she didn't want to have to live up to their expectations, not like Harry did, and that she didn't want to be broken. So, she said that she left. She left everything: the wizarding world, her friends, and Father. She said that Father tried to follow her. Tried to get her to stay, tried to get her to help him fight with the Light. She said that she kissed him, and whispered that she would always love him, and left. She said, softly, that she found out she was pregnant mere days after.

She said that she never saw him again, that he died weeks later, in a bloody attack right in Diagon Alley, where he had been strengthening the wards. She said that he died a hero, that he was as righteous and strong and courageous as Harry, and that she never regretted her time with him.

She never told me his name.

.0.0.0.

Mum told me stories of Harry and Ron, her best friends from school. She told me that when she first met them, Harry was scrawny and Ron was gangly and they both thought her horribly stuck up. She said they hurt her, then, but that they made up later.

She told me of their childhood adventures, and the corners they trapped themselves in. She told me of the troll, and Quirrel, and rogue bludgers and boggarts. She mentioned deserted classrooms, invisibility cloaks, and maps of the school. She rolled her eyes when she talked about SPEW, and when she remembered Dobby.

She told me Ron died defending her, and Harry went into a depression that lasted almost a year, and that when he came out of it he ran off and killed ten Death Eaters. She said that after that he retreated into himself, and was never the same Harry.

After that, she said he was all "Constant Vigilince!" and training and spying and fighting and tactical arrangements that went over her head. He never had time for her, and as a result, they grew apart.

She refused to let me meet him.

.0.0.0.

She told me of her parents, and how wonderful they were when they learned she was a witch. She said they took her to Diagon Alley, and dealt with her homework and friends and, at first, constant owls.

She told me of my grandmother, and how she always loved to hear how a magical process worked, and just WHY a boggart acted like it did. She told me Grandmother would have loved to be of use in the war, and how grudgingly she went into hiding with Grandfather at her side.

She told me of Grandfather, and his love for history and math, and how she shared everything she learned. She told me that every time she came home they would play Exploding Snap, and he would attempt to wrestle her into a game of chess. She told how handsome he was, and how in love with Grandmother he was, and how he hated going into hiding as much as Grandmother.

She never told me how they died.

.0.0.0.

She told me of her professors. She told me of Snape, that 'Greasy old git, who was really on the side of the Dark and _WHY_ didn't anybody notice it at first?'

She told me of Remus, the werewolf who was graying by thirty and was instrumental in the war, and of Binns, the 'most boring man in the world, _honestly.'_

She told me of Trelawny, that 'crazy old fraud that made three predictions before she died, poor woman,' and of Moody, who really didn't teach her at all, and of Dumbledore, the old Headmaster who taught Voldemort when he was a kid and saw him become evil and was 'the only one Voldemort feared,' but still ended up killed by Snape, who he really shouldn't have trusted anyways.

She told me they're all dead, every one of them, except Remus, who I really shouldn't mention, because it would bring up bad memories for her, and DAMMIT she didn't want that.

.0.0.0.

She told me of Hogwarts.

She drew a map, and showed me 'Hogwart's, a History', and waved her hands about when talking about the staircases and the portraits and the ghosts and the classes.

She told me that if something was a secret, then the whole school would find out within a week, and she was DAMNED if she knew how.

She said that the library was her refuge, the one place Harry and Ron wouldn't follow in her last year, the only place where she could think without being interrupted, and that she trained in the Room of Requirement, and that she wrote and drew and meditated up on the Astronomy Tower, where nobody ever went if they could help it.

She told me of the Gryffindor common room, so warm and inviting, with its comfy couches and crackling fire, and how sometimes Harry would hop on his Firebolt and fly right out that window when he was upset.

She didn't like to talk about how Hogwart's was razed to the ground mere weeks after she left.

.0.0.0.

And now I find myself here, standing in front of her grave by a strange man with gray hair who introduces himself as "Remus Lupin, and who might you be, to look so much like Draco Malfoy?"

So I brush my hair back, that my mother said was so much like Father's, and answer "Azra Granger, pleased to meet you," no matter how much I want to cry, and the fact my hands are being bitten by the cold and I'm wishing I'd worn a thicker cloak.

And then there's a cloak around my shoulders, and I know it's not Lupin's, because he has moved to lay flowers down on Mum's grave and whisper something soft that I can only guess at, so I turn around and find myself gazing up at a man who looks so weary that I feel so sorry for him. I raise my eyes up to meet his, and find that his eyes are green and sad, making him appear much older than he is, because this HAS to be Harry Potter, the man that Mum was best friends with, and he looks at me with such disappointment in his eyes.

He speaks, his voice gravelly, as though he hasn't used it much, like me, sortof, "She was my best friend, next to Ron, but I daresay you knew that." That one statement, paired with the look he gave me, spoke wonders. He was silently asking me why Mum kept me away, why she didn't tell them she had a child, why she never said goodbye, why, why, _why_! And I have to look up at him, and let myself cry, because I don't know and I never will, and I know, as I feel shaky arms wrap around me, that he will help me, because he was, " To be your Godfather, it was agreed so many years ago, why didn't she..?"

And as he draws back, and runs his fingers through my hair with a strange look on his face, he says I look so much like Father, and that my father was Draco Malfoy, and didn't I know? And as I shake my head, and he draws me close once again, I know everything will be alright.

- - - - - - -


End file.
